After the NHL secured a broadcast agreement with the Nordic countries, they’re taking their business even wider around the world with yet another deal to bring the game to more people globally.

The NHL will now carry live broadcasts to England/Ireland, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Slovakia, Italy, Austria, France and to parts of Africa and the Middle East thanks to a new agreement with nine broadcast outlets from around the world. The NHL has been making waves to get themselves on TV more here in North America (a nice 10-year deal with NBC helped out there) and now getting the game to their fans around Europe and elsewhere in the world helps the league’s reach improve all the more.

It’s nice to know that we could also travel to any of these locations and be able to find a game on TV if we wanted. Sure it might be really early in the morning to have to watch one, but it’s great that hockey is expanding its reach like this and even to places that you wouldn’t suspect there to be many fans (Middle East? Sub-Saharan Africa? French overseas territories?). Good for the NHL for being progressive rather than reactive.